Lots of interesting and passionate responses to the question of GOP litmus tests. Many readers point out that, for the GOP base anyway, right now it doesn’t matter what Bush does on social or fiscal issues as long as he gets the war on terror “right.” I think that’s generally correct. Imagining September 12 with Sandy Berger, Madeleine Albright and William Cohen (or their equivalents within a Gore administration) at the helm is enough to keep most fiscal and social conservatives turning out in droves for Bush in ‘04.
Beyond that, most Corner readers say there are two litmus tests. For fiscal conservatives, tax increases are verboten. For social conservatives, it’s going soft of abortion (and, to some extent, gay marriage). Provided Bush stays true to those, he can, in effect, do no wrong in the eyes of fiscal and social conservatives. And I think this, too, is generally correct. Not much new here.
What is troubling is the degree to which both conservative Bush supporters and the Bush team generally seem unconcerned about the nation’s entitlement programs, in particular Medicare. The latest estimates are of unfunded liabilities of between $30 and $50 trillion. That’s why, as dull as it is, the debate over the addition of a prescription drug benefit to Medicare is a big deal. If Bush agrees to the benefit without the significant market-based reforms of the system, he will have severely jeopardized the nation. There’s a reason–besides free-riding off the security provided by American armed forces–Europeans don’t have significant militaries. Even if they wanted them, with their massive entitlement programs, they can’t afford them. And the way our entitlement programs are ballooning, it will make it difficult to pay for a sustained global war against terrorists and their state sponsors in the future (or an expansionist China or any other threat that emerges). And this is something to which Big Government Conservatives seem completely oblivious.